# @beineckelibrary on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CxA4zfDIt4L
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/31770038-beineckelibrary-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/9c7b84c473.jpg
- **Posted:** 2023-09-10T14:00:10.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Beinecke Library (@beineckelibrary) — https://gondola.cc/beineckelibrary

## Caption

Alongside civil rights, the antiwar movement dominated American landscapes of art and protest in 1968. Both came together in the Youth International Party, or Yippies, founded by Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hofmann. Emerging from the heady currents swirling in Greenwich Village (see south table case), the Yippies drew on tactics of guerilla theater and Happenings to stage acts of mischievous insubordination that provoked much media attention. Hoffman and Rubin made headlines with pranks such as the March on the Pentagon, where Allen Ginsberg led chants supposedly intended to end the Vietnam War by “exorcising” and “levitating” the building in
1967. A few months later Hoffman threw fistfuls of (fake) dollars from the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange, setting off a mad scramble for cash on the trading floor that made quite a scene.
Things became more serious in 1968, when Yippies occupied prominent spaces in New York in a series of Be-Ins and Be-Outs (above) inspired by the popular sit-in tactic developed by Black civil rights activists in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the early 1960s. In March, violence broke out at Grand Central Station when baffled police finally assaulted thousands of revelers who were singing, dancing, chanting, smoking marijuana, and shouting antiwar slogans in the main hall.
A more serious confrontation took place in August, when Yippies held a six-day Festival of Life to counter the Democratic National “Convention of Death” in Chicago (at left). Some 10,000 hippies, Yippies, civil rights activists, antiwar protesters, and others descended on the city, meeting an aggressive response from the National Guard. Riots ensued, culminating in hundreds of protesters and police being injured, and 600 protestors were taken into custody in the “Battle of Michigan Avenue.” The trials of the Chicago Seven and Black Panther leader Bobby Seale—who was also arrested at the protest—became a kind of tribunal, in which the American public on both sides passed final verdict on the American ’68.

This is part of our newest exhibition, Art, Protest, & the Archives, here at the Beinecke! Now open until January 7th, 2024! Link in bio!

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## Credits

| Name | Username | Profile | Role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Beinecke Library | @beineckelibrary | https://gondola.cc/beineckelibrary | University |
| Shelagh Laverty | @Shelagh_Laverty | https://gondola.cc/Shelagh_Laverty | Creative Media Intern |

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